Reprint: November 2005

I wrote this on my blog in 2005, and have ported it here because it still seems relevant. What the heck is going on with Iraq? Seriously?

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Nov 16, 2005:

Although it is getting to be a tired subject, let’s rehash the debate on leaving Iraq one more time.

Recently the Sun Times ran an article (article is no longer linkable) that was sarcastically critical of the plan to leave Iraq. It implied the following (with the requisite responses):

Point 1: Leaving Iraq would show the world that the United States lacked resolve.
Response: Is it truly reasonable to expect that, at some point any time in the future, the rest of the world will sit back and say “You know what? Those Americans sure are resolved. If a plan of any sort is wrong, what good is resolve? To take this thought experiment to its most absurb ends - suppose Person A planned to rape Person B. If person A follows through with this plan, we don’t admire his resolve. We demand that he both cease what he’s doing, we don’t request he think about prolonging it. We also want justice, not opbscure justifications such as how the wrongdoing might lead to other beneficial consequences. Why would we apply any different judgement to our government, which represents us. If we don’t demand justice, and and end to the wrongdoing we don’t deserve it.

Point 2: It is, in effect, wimpy to leave Iraq in its current state.
Response: What state should Iraq be in? Does the United States Constitution specify how Iraq should look before we leave? On another note, would it be proper to say that Iraq was in better condition for the average Iraqi than before the United States invaded?

3. It is the duty of us now to “finish the job”. American credibility is at stake.
Response: See my response to Point #1, above. What does “finish the job” mean? Why haven’t the leaders specified what defines a “finished job”? Also, will crushing a resistance in a foreign land lend America any credibility? If so, what will we apply this credibility towards? If not, why continue a day longer?

The argument against this is simple. I’ve argued it a thousand times now (maybe more). I have been opposed to this war since the planning stages, as anyone can tell you. The arguments were pretty much the same then as they are now. I am far from a liberal, or what a liberal is now called, and I’m definitely not a conservative, or what a conservative is now understood to be. I probably represent the silent majority of Americans who would really like to know what he hell is being perpetrated in their name. How many more soldiers need to die before ending this thing becomes a critical objective?

Let’s not find out.

Just do the right thing and get out. It was wrong to begin with, and there is no set criteria for what constitutes a “job well done”. Time to stop posturing and do unto others as we’d have done to ourselves.

It really is that simple, unless of course your job revolves around justifying the actions of the state, or you took a hardline stance at a previous barbeque or cocktail party and you just can’t stand the thought of rethinking your position. Is an unsound justification for war a legitimate excuse to expose any more American soldiers or Iraqi civilians to death or dismemberment? Characters like David Brooks, Tim Russert, Charles Krauthammer, Robert Novak and the slew of journalists that provided justification for the current military actions and encroachments on the liberties of Americans are just pidgeons picking at the crumbs thrown to them by the Administration. They’d follow any reasoning which allowed them to bask near the glory of power. I ask - where is the journalistic integrity in that?

They are beltway jesters employed to make sure we don’t ask questions about the man behind the curtain.